The biggest news in the Oscar world today is also the best: the show will go on, and in all likelihood, there will be no strike to worry about by February 24. The writers and the producers are still negotiating, and even though no deal has been set, the word at the Academy is that we will have a show. Yesterday was the annual nominees luncheon, where all the nominees get to schmooze and are honored for just being on the list. Academy president Sid Ganis told them, ”We're going to hand out Oscars not because of some showbiz notion that the show must go on -- it's not the show per se that matters. ... The Oscar exists to shine the brightest possible light on you and your work, and it would be such a terrible shame, through no fault of yours and no fault of ours, if the current conditions prevented us from shining that brightest possible light."
So, hooray! All the hand-wringing about whether or not it was worth obsessing over the Oscars given that there may not even be a ceremony can be cast aside. The Oscars are important again! And since everyone at the ceremony will likely be jubilant that the strike has ended, this could be one of the most fun ceremonies in years. Ganis even declined to give his usual “keep your speeches short” lecture at the luncheon. I may be in the minority in my love of super-long acceptance speeches, but won’t it be exciting to hear those flustered speeches with the undercurrent of “Oh, thank God, I can go back to work now!” The screenplay winners should be especially great.
And now we can get to the prognostication! Actually, the question of the fate of the Oscar ceremony has turned out to be much more interesting than who will actually take home the statues. The Coen Brothers picked up yet another award over the weekend at the Producers Guild Award, sharing with co-producer Scott Rudin the award for picture of the year. This means that No Country for Old Men has won, uh, pretty much everything except the Golden Globe, and remains the strongest contender by far for Best Picture.
In the meantime, Juno continues to be the biggest box office threat of the bunch, building on its $100 million-plus gross over the weekend. There Will Be Blood is the only other contender in the top ten, having made a paltry $21 million by comparison. Juno’s box office is being seen by some as proof that it can walk away with Best Picture—the people who vote on the Oscars, after all, are the ones who make movies, and it’s usually financially lucrative to reward the movie that the most people saw. It’s hard to remember at this point in the year that most people who tune into the Oscars haven’t seen most, or even some, of the contenders. But during years when Titanic and Return of the King were up for awards, viewership spiked. In the end movies are made for people, and every now and then the Academy likes to reward that.
And, of course, spoiler theories are all over the place. At Vanity Fair’s Oscar blog Little Gold Men, they want to have us believe that Tony Gilroy can beat Diablo Cody for Best Original Screenplay. And as I reported earlier today, the catchphrase from There Will Be Blood is sweeping the nation, proving it might have some kind of groundswell of support that no one else is seeing coming. Finally here at Cinema Blend, Josh is sick of it all, wondering which of this year’s overrated movies will take the top prize.
This is really the lull period of Oscar prognostication season, with the nominees announced but the ceremony still weeks away. Especially with No Country barreling its way through the remaining awards and very few precursor awards left to give out, the whole thing is starting to seem set in stone. But don’t give up yet. Over the next few weeks we’ll take a look at some of the potential spoilers, and figure out whether or not any of them have a chance to unseat the heavyweights (No Country, Coens, Day-Lewis, Christie, Bardem, Blanchett, etc.) Start picking your underdog favorites now, or watch out, because I will drink your Oscar prediction milkshake!
